Julian Assange Claims to Have Gotten His Hands on the WikiLeaks-Movie Script, Offers His Unsolicited Notes

Earlier this week, Bill Condon’s WikiLeaks movie, The Fifth Estate, began filming in Berlin. By Wednesday, DreamWorks had released the first film still showing Benedict Cumberbatch in character as controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (above). And by Wednesday night, Julian Assange, who claims to have a copy of the script, voiced his disapproval of the project from the Ecuadorian Embassy, which has been granting him asylum since August. During an address to Oxford University students via video-link, the controversial information activist called the project “a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff.”

Wielding what he claimed was the script (although he never showed it to the camera), The Guardianreports, Assange quoted from a scene in which he says scientists meet a U.S. agent. “How is it that a lie gets into a script about WikiLeaks?” Assange asked. Another story note he had about the script, written by Josh Singer: that The Fifth Estate, which Assange says begins with scenes inside a military complex in Iran, where nuclear symbols are clearly seen, is “fanning the flames” of war. “How does this have anything to do with us? It is a lie upon lie.”

In other news, it does not seem likely that Assange will take that meeting with Benedict Cumberbatch, who portrays him in the film, that the Sherlockstar has been requesting. “I’m certainly trying [to meet him],” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter. “He knows we’re making the movie—but how he feels about me playing him, I’m yet to know.”

The film, which is due in U.S. theaters on November 15, is based on two books: Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s InsideWikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, by David Leigh and Luke Harding. Bill Condon revealed his goals forThe Fifth Estateearlier this week: “We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked. . . . It may be decades before we understand the full impact of WikiLeaks and how it’s revolutionised the spread of information. So this film won’t claim any long view authority on its subject, or attempt any final judgment.”